If you’ve been following cryptocurrency news lately, you may have figured out by now that one of the reasons why many investors were at the edge of their seats for the past weeks was due to the threat of regulators on cryptocurrency exchanges. Countries are worried about different things. There are those that are worried that because of the volatility of cryptocurrencies that their investors could lose money and eventually have an effect on their economy. China, for instance, has completely banned both local and international crypto exchanges while India has been doing the same.
Fortunately, the South Korean government decided to not get rid of their plans to totally ban crypto trading in the country which allowed Bitcoin and altcoin prices to recover. On February 20, 2018, South Korean regulators announced that they are now working towards “normalization” than increased regulations of cryptocurrencies. According to Choe Heung-sik, the governor of South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service, “The whole world is now framing the outline (for cryptocurrency) and therefore (the government) should rather work more on normalization than increasing regulation”.
In November 2017, he mentioned that “supervision (of cryptocurrency exchanges) will come only after the legal recognition of digital tokens as legitimate currency”. Choe also mentioned in December that Bitcoin is a bubble.
What Makes It a Big Deal?
Kim Haw-joon of the Korea Blockchain Association mentioned that “Though the government and the industry have not yet reached a full agreement, the fact that the regulator himself made clear the government’s stance on co-operation is a positive sign for the markets”.
There were reports late last year that one-third of South Koreans hold their own form of cryptocurrency. In a study conducted in the past few months, three out of ten salaried workers are crypto investors. In addition to this, 80% of which made money from cryptocurrencies.
Just how large of a market is South Korea? South Korea during the study was considered the world’s third largest market for Bitcoin trading after Japan and the US. It also has one of the largest crypto trading exchanges in the world, Bithumb.
Will Bitcoin Come Back to $12K
Many are now wondering whether or not Bitcoin will ever hit $12,000 in the coming weeks. Weeks after Bitcoin has reached almost the $20,000 mark, series of regulatory changes dropped its price to just below $6,000. Now that there’s the announcement from South Korea’s regulators, could it be possible that it reaches $12,000?
If you will ask Omkar Godbole of CoinDesk, he mentioned that the bearish market is trading below its December and January highs; however, it seems that the outlook for the prices is on its way up. He also mentioned that the current resistance is at $12,300 and the behavior of the last five to ten days was in favor of a more bullish market behavior.
Can investors worldwide expect a better outcome for Bitcoin and other altcoins in the coming months now that South Korea has stepped back on its plan to tighten regulations on crypto exchanges? By the way things are going, it seems that there is hope that Bitcoin could actually recover from all the losses that it incurred over the last few months.
